Good Lord

The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has formally disinvited all politicians from its rally on Monday, September 22, to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presence at the U.N. General Assembly.

The decision was made to disinvite Palin — the chief executive of one of the 50 state of the union as well as the vice-presidential candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States. According to Ben Smith of Politico:

The appearance that the non-partisan group was aligning with the Republican ticket put the group and its president, Malcolm Hoenlein, under heavy pressure from Jewish Democrats, including members of the conference, members of Congress, and the liberal group J Street, not to give Palin a platform, sources said. Hoenlein told the McCain campaign that he would have to rescind Palin’s invitation or cancel the rally

The McCain camp has issued a statement in Palin's name: [partial]

Governor Palin was pleased to accept an invitation to address this rally and show her resolve on this grave national security issue, regrettably that invitation has since been withdrawn under pressure from Democratic partisans. Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons should be a shared goal of every American, not another occasion for partisan posturing.

[aligning with the Republican party? They'd invited Hillary first - who believes that drivel?

So, rather than a united front against self-described enemies of this nation, we'll have nobody. marvelous. I can hear president I'manidiot laughing his ass off...]

READ MORE

Evangelicals to UN: Indict Ahmadinejad

[HT:RG]
A prominent Jerusalem-based evangelical organization will deliver a petition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week signed by tens of thousands of Christians from around the world demanding that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be indicted for incitement to genocide against Israel.

"The silence of most Christian clergy in the face of Germany's horrific bid to annihilate European Jewry left a deep stain on the churches. Yet from it has arisen a sense among multitudes of Christians today that we have an inescapable moral duty to earnestly speak out whenever another genocidal campaign threatens the Jewish people."

The petition, which was initiated by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and signed by more than 55,000 people from 128 countries, comes ahead of the Iranian leader's planned visit to New York, where he is scheduled address the opening of the UN General Assembly next week.

READ MORE

Ahmadinejad ‘Israel cannot survive in any shape or form’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that Israel was perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference ahead of his visit to New York, Ahmadinejad also repeated previous anti-Israel comments, calling the Holocaust by Nazi Germany a "fake."

The Iranian President stated that the Jewish state wouldn't survive in any form.

He smirked at a former mantra of the Israeli right of a "Greater" Israel that would include occupied Palestinian territories, saying that while "some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of a lesser Israel has expired."

[Once again we see inverted Islamic reality on display: the numbers of Pali-Arabs since the creation of the Jewish state has increased by 700 %. Some Palestinian holocaust]

READ MORE

Raids into Pakistan: What U.S. authority?

WASHINGTON - Orders President Bush signed in July authorizing raids by special operations forces in the areas of Pakistan controlled by the Taliban and Al Qaeda and undertaking those raids without official Pakistani consent, have roots stretching back to the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In an address to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush said,

"From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

But even before that declaration, two key steps had been taken: One, Congress had authorized the use of US military force against terrorist organizations and the countries that harbor or support them. Indeed, recent events appear to have convinced at least some in the administration that parts of Pakistan's military and powerful intelligence service are actually aiding the extremists...

[asked and answered. And Petaeus' new command includes Afghanistan.]

READ MORE

In praise of Petraeus

AT the start of his tour of duty as US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus noted that "hard is not hopeless". As he relinquished command on Tuesday after 20 months of slowly turning Iraq away from the possibility of all-out Sunni-Shia civil war, he said Iraq was "still hard but hopeful".

Cautious optimism appears to be an appropriate assessment, heavily qualified by the need for a continuing, strong coalition presence to prevent the gains being reversed...

READ MORE

‘Everybody’ Gets Credit for No New Terrorist Attacks Since 9/11, Says Pelosi

''Everybody'' deserves credit for the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks in America since 9/11, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in response to a question about whether the Bush administration merited any credit for preventing terrorism.

[I'm perpetually amazed that her constituents haven't recalled her out of sheer embarrassment]

READ MORE

Islamic sharia courts in Britain are now 'legally binding'

Islamic sharia law courts in Britain are exploiting a little-known legal clause to make their verdicts officially binding under UK law in cases including divorce, financial disputes and even domestic violence.

A new network of courts in five major cities is hearing cases where Muslims involved agree to be bound by traditional sharia law, and under the 1996 Arbitration Act the court's decisions can then be enforced by the county courts...

[yes folks agree to be bound to Sharia law first - but are you and I free to make such binding agreements that are contrary to law? I think not. Bad idea.]

READ MORE

USSRussia

.
Russia promises 'protection' to occupied parts of Georgia

Moscow - Russia has strengthened its relations with Georgia's two breakaway regions, even as the Bush administration intensified its warnings that Russia was ''on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.''

The treaties also allow Russia to build military bases and to station additional troops in the two territories. Those steps, if carried out, would violate the European-brokered cease-fire

[I'm sure Russia's real worried about what Europe thinks: it's dependent on Russia for its energy]

READ MORE


Russia threatens to seize swathe of Arctic

Moscow - President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia should unilaterally claim part of the Arctic, stepping up the race for the disputed energy-rich region.

"We must finalise and adopt a federal law on the southern border of Russia's Arctic zone," Mr Medvedev told a meeting of the Security Council, in remarks carried by Interfax news agency. "This is our responsibility, and simply our direct duty, to our descendents," he said.

READ MORE.

Oops! Nets Wrong On Warming - Again

It must stink being a network global warming alarmist. They just can't seem to get their stories straight.

It's only been a couple months when the networks were screaming about Arctic ice disappearing this summer. And, no surprise, they were entirely wrong. By 1.74 million square miles.

"But this summer, some scientists say that ice could retreat so dramatically that open water covers the North Pole, so much so that you could sail across it."

Or not. According to a September 16 National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) report, such predictions were off. Way off.

NSIDC reported ice loss was less than in 2007. "On September 12, 2008, sea ice extent dropped to 4.52 million square kilometers (1.74 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest point of the year, as sea has now begun its annual cycle of growth in response to autumn cooling," according to the organization.

READ MORE

Democratic Leaders to American Commuters: Ride a Bike

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives sent a message this week to hard-working commuters forced to pay historically high prices for gasoline: Ride a bike.

The message was buried on page 255 of a 290-page bill the Democratic leadership introduced at 9:45 p.m. on Monday night, forced through the Rules Committee at 10:00 p.m (Snip) Employers could count as a deductible business expense a tax-free $20 monthly reimbursement to workers who bike to work.

READ MORE

Drilling Victory!

Democrats have knuckled under to GOP demands to let the congressional ban on offshore drilling and shale recovery in the Rocky Mountains expire on October 1 for a period that will last at least through the rest of the year.

The Democrats’ concession comes amid concerns their party would be faulted for high gas prices in the November election.

[The real game here: they're betting it all on Obama winning the White House, in which case re-instating all moratoriums will be the first order of business.

We'll be voting on a lot this November]

READ MORE

Congress Tries To Fix What It Broke

Regulation: As the financial crisis spreads, denials on Capitol Hill grow more shrill. Blame an aloof President Bush, greedy Wall Street, risky capitalism — anybody but those in Congress who wrote the banking rules.

Such denials won't hold against the angry facts banging on their doors. The only question is whether the guilty party can keep up the barricade until Election Day.

A visibly annoyed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected suggestions that Democrats are to blame for the meltdown. "No," she snapped at reporters who dared ask.

Stick to our narrative, she scolded: The bursting of the housing bubble was another story of market failure and deregulation.

"The American people are not protected from the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions," she said, while calling for investigations of the industry.

Only, the risk-taking was her idea — and the idea of all the other Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, who over the past 30 years have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of diversity...

[our current mess required our 'captains of industry' to match Washington's corruption and so multiply the problem to its current biblical proportions - but the original sin of temptation placed before them was, once again, government involvement which made it more profitable to game the system than to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, this will be spun by the simple (or vested interests) as a need for more {vs. better} regulation - proving the method behind the Democrats' seeming madness: if we insert government we can break it, then we can demand more government to fix it... ]

BTW: The FBI is now investigating 24 large mortgage lenders for alleged abuses. But who will investigate the pols and the lobbyists and the community agitators who made the bad decisions that ultimately forced businesses to make their bad decisions?

READ MORE

More regulation will harm, not help, recovery

The capitalist fat cat has long held a treasured place in popular demonology. Russians used to deride casino capitalism before showing us how to do it really well - by playing with the house's money. British trade union leaders castigated the City of London even as it created jobs at many times the pace at which their own mulish Luddism destroyed them.

[tried to parse down, couldn't -- Must Read > ]

READ MORE

Just don't call the U.S. economy solid

John McCain was right when he said Monday that despite the bad news about Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy and AIG trolling for help from Uncle Sam, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

As politicians running for the White House learn, honesty is a commodity best used sparingly on the campaign trail. Voters apparently believe that America is in a terrible recession - even though the gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent last quarter...

[facts even the SF Chronicle can't deny]

READ MORE

DEA arrests 175 Mexican drug trafficking suspects

WASHINGTON- In what prosecutors said was a significant step in fighting the drug wars raging on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Justice Department said Wednesday that 175 people believed to be connected with one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels were arrested this week in a dozen states.

The arrests Tuesday and Wednesday were part of a 15-month investigation led by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration targeting the drug trafficking organization known as the Gulf cartel.

READ MORE

Appeals court upholds Arizona immigration law

[HT:NB]
Phoenix - A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld an Arizona law that penalizes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants and requires them to verify the employment status of their workers.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision rejected a challenge by business and Hispanic groups who contend that the law infringes on federal immigration powers.

READ MORE

Higher (Priced) Education

Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It makes me wonder, were he alive today, if he would characterize us as a country of cynics or merely dismiss us as a nation of fools.

I mean, how is it that Americans who lived hard scrabble lives 150 years ago could read, write, do math problems and quote at length from Shakespeare and the Bible, while today, in spite of “Sesame Street,” pre-school, Operation Head Start, computers and mind-numbing hours of homework, millions of youngsters entering college can do none of those things?

It seems obvious to me that our education system, which costs us billions and billions of dollars, is a wreck. While not all of it is the fault of the teachers unions, affirmative action, bi-lingual education and the emphasis on promoting self-esteem in the youngsters, a lot of it is. But if there was any one thing I would change tomorrow, it’s the loony notion that everyone should get a college degree [snip]

As a result, the biggest con game, the slickest racket, in America is the co-called college education...

[no one is saying college isn't a good thing - but it's a scam for those put through it and, more importantly, is preventing millions of adults from going back to learn what they need to in an ever changing society because they're not going to put up with endless hours of learning what they don't need to know {which only they are qualified to determine} - Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Speaking of professors

[sort of...]

History Dept.: Palin Connected to Hate Groups
The chair of the Connecticut College history department, Catherine McNicol Stock, has suggested that Sarah Palin is somehow associated with Pacific Northwest hate groups such as Posse Comitatus and the Aryan Nations.

Her proof? Well, because Palin lived in areas with low "diversity." I kid you not. Here is the professor's "learned thesis" presented in a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion column melodramatically titled, "Intolerance thrives in Palin's Pacific Northwest" ...
READ MORE


Palin 'Inflicts' Her Religion on US, She's 'Not a Woman'
Wendy Doniger is a columnist for Newsweek's "On Faith" beat and is also the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. But that doesn't seem to have made her less of a wiled-eyed Republican hater, unfortunately. That her hate is directed at Governor Sarah Palin also shows that these sorts of women aren't interested in helping strong women to public influence but only their kind of ideologue is acceptable.

"I object strongly when anyone (and especially anyone with political power) tries to take their theology out in public, to inflict those private religious (or sexual) views on other people. In both sex and religion (which combine in the debates about abortion), Sarah Palin's views make me fear that the Republican party has finally lost its mind."

You see, Sarah Palin has never"inflicted" her religious views on the public. Naturally, we see that this slanderous septuagenarian obviously has nothing but hatred for those Republicans she is so fearful of and she has allowed her superstitions to overtake any sense of reality or reason...
READ MORE

Metro State Prof Investigated For Palin Assignment
Metro State College is investigating a professor who asked students to write an essay critical of Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. One student said the instructor singled out Republican students in the class and allowed others to ridicule them.

"I was shocked, I was holy cow, this is just an open door for him to discuss politics with us,"

Barber shared the first class assignment with CBS4. Instructor Andrew Hallam asked students to write an essay to contradict what he called the 'fairy tale image of Palin' presented at the Republican National Convention.

Metro State officials are investigating claims of bias, harassment and bullying. Hallam declined an interview with CBS4. He has revised the assignment.

READ MORE

Bill Moyers' Fights Conservative Talk Radio on PBS
In his weekly prime time national taxpayer-supported PBS show on September 12, 2008, left wing icon Bill Moyers targeted talk radio -- and not for the first time.

But this time, the first one-third of the hour long program featured an in-depth report, ''Rage on the Radio - What happens when America's airwaves fill with hate?'' The report focused exclusively on conservative, right of center talk radio.

[have you ever heard Air America? {or 'green 960' here in the bay area?}]
READ MORE

Rover, call me an ambulance— dog calls 911

PHOENIX - "Man's best friend" doesn't go far enough for Buddy — a German shepherd who remembered his training and saved his owner's life by calling 911 when the man had a seizure. And it's not the first time Buddy has been there for owner Joe Stalnaker, a police officer said Sunday. On a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, Buddy is heard whimpering and barking after the dispatcher answers ...

['good dog']
READ MORE

Eating veggies shrinks the brain

MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage. Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish

[ah, this explains much...]
READ MORE